Maloney previously served as an external advisor to senior State Department officials on long-term issues related to Iran. Before joining Brookings, she served on the secretary of state's policy planning staff, as Middle East advisor for ExxonMobil Corporation, and director of the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S. policy toward Iran, chaired by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

She holds a doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

Maloney previously served as an external advisor to senior State Department officials on long-term issues related to Iran. Before joining Brookings, she served on the secretary of state’s policy planning staff, as Middle East advisor for ExxonMobil Corporation, and director of the 2004 Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on U.S. policy toward Iran, chaired by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

She holds a doctorate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University.

[Trump has] given Iran the moral high ground and that is an exceptionally difficult thing to do given the history and reality of Iran's misdeeds at home and in the region. It's just malpractice on the part of an American president.

The way the Trump administration is moving forward [with its Iran policy] is just so hostile to all aspects of Iran that it’s unlikely to produce any traction with the Iranian people or to encourage divisions within the system.

The intent of [any U.S. action] to do with the IRGC is basically to cast a very broad shadow over sectors of the Iranian economy and exacerbate the compliance nightmare for foreign businesses that may be considering trade and investment with Iran.

To the extent the rest of the world is watching this soap opera [regarding Iran] play out in Washington… it really does telegraph how limited our influence is going to be on key issues like this in the future.

[Decertification of the nuclear deal] only confirms Iran’s deep-seated distrust of American intentions and will almost certainly encourage and expedite the inevitable process of Iranian testing of the boundaries of its own adherence to the JCPOA... [W]e can expect intensified frictions across the board with Iran, that may play out in unpredictable and potentially uncontrollable fashion.

No one has yet explained the tactical advantage of [decertifying the Iran nuclear deal], no one has made a credible case. This will hurt our relations with our allies, it will provoke Iran to take more aggressive action and it’s all designed to assuage the president’s ego.